IN BUTLER’S 80-70 home loss to UConn on Wednesday night, the evening began in unorthodox fashion: with much of the positive attention on a visiting player. His name is Braylon Mullins, and he was Indiana’s high school Mr. Basketball recipient less than a year ago.
“When I got announced, I felt like that was the beginning of it, a standing ovation,” Mullins said afterwards about his return. “I was feeling a little bit of nerves, butterflies in the stomach, but I feel like in the flow of the game, move on from that and play basketball. It’s good to see all the people supporting me.”
Many of the fans at Hinkle Fieldhouse had traveled just west on I-70 for the game, and they sported their symbolic gear for a school that wasn’t playing the game. The object of their affections possesses the unassuming nature of a boy, but who he becomes on the court is a man.
That player from Greenfield Central might be Dan Hurley’s most promising player on the country’s fifth- or sixth-best team, depending on who you ask. Their recent loss to St. John’s at Madison Square Garden broke an 18-game winning streak for the Huskies.
The 6-foot-6 freshman guard had previously played at Hinkle for a couple of high school summer league games, but that was before suiting up for the Huskies.
He gave the locals what they wanted, even as the Bulldogs fought valiantly. Mullins was the Huskies’ leading scorer at halftime with 13 points, most of which were three-pointers, but with a tip-in and a mid-range jumper mixed in.
The real story was less his points scored than his plus-minus differential in the game’s first 20 minutes. Butler’s deficit at the break was just three, but when Mullins was in the game, his team was +15. No one else’s stat line for either team could compare.
“ He’s a pure hooper,” UConn reserve guard and former IU Indianapolis point guard Alec Millender says about Mullins. “We call him the Bringer of Rain, referencing a show that Hurley liked. … I always call him an Indiana-mal.”
Mullins scoring slowed down in the second half, even as his team stretched out its lead, but Hurley had an explanation for that.
“He was basically getting face-guarded. We’re playing four-on-four a lot of times. Other times, we’re playing two-on-two because of (Alex) Karaban, Mullins, and Solo (Ball). … Braylon is a crazy shot maker, and I’m just happy that we were able to get him 15 shots.”
Mullins finished with 15 points and five rebounds in the game, and his last-made shot punctuated both Butler’s night and the player Mullins is becoming. With 2:30 left in the game and the Huskies up 8, Mullins received a pass at the left elbow from Tarris Reed Jr. When he tried to dribble left, he was stopped in his tracks. Mullins spun back the other way, elevated, and released while fading away from the basket. The shot was Jordan-esque. Or Kobe-esque, if you prefer.
One of the fans at the game was Luke Meredith, who coached Mullins in high school and went on one of Mullins’ recruiting visits to the University of Connecticut. He has since stepped down as Greenfield Central’s head coach after spending four years with the best player he’s ever coached.
“We went from, Is he good enough to play D-I? to Is he going to go to UConn, Duke, Carolina, or one of these blue-blood programs? These coaches are calling me nonstop to now, getting calls from NBA teams. It’s just pretty surreal, and it’s a credit to him, his development, who he is as a man, and how he was raised.”
Meredith is also aware that it wasn’t just the humble kid from Greenfield whose life has changed. ”I’ll always be known as the head coach of Braylon Mullins,” he admitted. “And I’m proud of that.”
As a pretty good keepsake, he has a signed basketball from Dan Hurley thanking him for doing it.
